


Kahlua

by NoteInABottle



Series: Shizaya - Age Difference [5]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Age Difference, Bartender!Shizuo, Flirting, M/M, cocktails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoteInABottle/pseuds/NoteInABottle
Summary: There's been a man coming in early and staying until closing time, settling into the barstool as if he owned the place. There's something about him that Shizuo doesn't like. Maybe it’s the crowd he hangs out with - the sleazy looking businessmen and the shady fellows wearing sunglasses indoors. Maybe it’s the drinks he orders - bitter instead of sweet, and ridiculously complicated. Maybe it's just the way that Izaya Orihara looks at him.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Series: Shizaya - Age Difference [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586347
Comments: 21
Kudos: 118





	1. Kahlua

When the young man comes in, shaking out the rain from his hair, shrugging out of his jacket, Shizuo's hands immediately clench on the glass and rag that he's been holding for the past half hour. It doesn't break, thankfully, but it's a near thing.

"Hello," Izaya says, smiling at him in that infuriating way. "I'll have the usual, please."

It's a joke. Izaya doesn't have a usual. He's gotten something different each time. He is a bartender's nightmare. Shizuo's hands bear down even more weight on his glass. It still doesn't break.

"Just tell me what you want already," Shizuo says bluntly. "Stop making me guess whatever your tastes are."

"But this is just so much more _fun_ ," Izaya tosses over his shoulder, before going to his usual spot on the bar. There's already a man over there, sharply dressed in a dark suit and tie, sitting in the corner.

Shizuo barely stops himself from hurling the glass at the back of his head. All sense of decorum usually goes right out the window when Izaya is involved. It makes him feel like he's a child again, prone to tantrums. It makes him feel like he's going crazy.

He ends up mixing a White Russian, going easy on the cream. There is a row of glasses with ice in them on the bar, lined up and ready to go. He's expecting a lot more people to walk in through that door later - it is a weekend after all, even if it is raining. The usual patrons have already filed in, but the younger crowd might decide to be out in force tonight.

He's the only bartender working here. On the other end of the bar is a small stage with an empty mic-stand and karaoke box. Nobody ever uses the dance floor to do anything but stand around and talk, so Shizuo doesn't bother setting up live bands or dance music or lights. He likes it quiet, anyway.

Izaya is already settled in, with his jacket on top of the stool next to him, his dark hair sticking a little to his pale skin from the rain outside. He doesn't look too out of place though, next to the business suit man.

Shizuo comes up to him, noting with irritation that the business man is someone he doesn't know and doesn't recognize. It seems like Izaya's clientele has expanded yet again.

"Here," he says, setting down the drink with a napkin and a thin straw in it, nothing too fancy. "Your usual. Would you like to open a tab?"

The last is directed towards the suit, who had jumped, startled, not seeing Shizuo approach.

 _It's a fucking bar,_ Shizuo wants to tell him. _Are you gonna order a drink or not?_

But he's learned to hold his tongue a little better in recent years. No need to antagonize potential new customers, even if they are greasy, beady-eyed weasels. Shizuo takes a moment to study him, this new guy. He's got a scar on either side of his face, too visible and too symmetrical. An unpleasant feeling coils up in Shizuo's gut. How the fuck does Izaya even know someone like that?

"Hmmm," Izaya is playing with the straw in his drink, looking amused. "I don't think I'll like this one, Shizu-chan. It looks like it would taste too sweet."

"You ordered it," Shizuo doesn't take his gaze off the new guy. Sometimes, the people that Izaya drinks with are huge alcoholics, buying drinks for everyone in the bar and going through ten or so drinks in a night. Shizuo makes bank on those days. Other times, Izaya's partner refuses to drink anything. From the look of things, this one _wants_ to be the latter type, but he's quickly giving in to the intimidation of not ordering a drink from this angry-looking blonde bartender who Izaya is apparently on friendly terms with.

"I'll get a moscow mule," the suit says nervously.

"Okay."

"I can't drink this," Izaya says over them both. 

Shizuo turns away, trying to ignore him.

"I thought I told you that I don't like sweet things."

Shizuo had been trying so hard to act professional tonight, but this stops him in his tracks. 

"You never said that."

"Are you sure? The drink you made me last time was better, Shizu-chan. I'm so disappointed now."

Izaya leans forward on the bar. He has taken on a teasing tone, but it doesn't stop his words from making Shizuo's blood boil.

Shizuo shakes his head and leaves before Izaya can annoy him any further. He's come pretty close to kicking Izaya out several times, if only because the young man's presence bothers him so much that he can barely concentrate on making his drinks sometimes.

"I'm not drinking it!" Izaya calls out behind him. Shizuo keeps walking.

  
  
  


When he comes back to collect the glasses, as expected, Izaya's drink is untouched and left on the counter in front of him. His business suit friend had ended up ordering more drinks after all, falling somewhere in the middle of the pack - three drinks, all different, but nothing too complicated.

Izaya is leaning his elbows on the countertop, watching with a wide eyed expectant look, as if he is waiting for some kind of reaction.

"I guess you don't want anything else," Shizuo asks him dryly. The businessman is dropping heavily, eyes half-lidded in sleep.

"No," Izaya tilts his head a little. He's clearly fully awake, even though it's far past midnight. He pushes his drink towards Shizuo. "Take it away."

"You didn't even try it."

"I didn't have to. It has _cream_ in it."

"What the fuck's wrong with cream?"

Izaya grins at him, insolent and infuriating to look at.

"Language~" he chides in a sing-song voice. "You don't wanna talk to your customers like that."

"Find another place to drink, then." Even as he says it, Shizuo knows that Izaya won't. "I've got too much on my hands to worry about the kinds of trouble _you're_ bringing in."

Izaya's eyebrows shoot up. He looks like he might be biting back a smile.

"Trouble? What kinda trouble?"

Shizuo nods to the sleeping businessman. "Who's this?"

"A friend of a friend."

"Bullshit."

He's been working on a theory as to who all these people are, Izaya included. He has seen the state of their wallets. Most of them, even Izaya, have way more money than the usual patrons of this place. They've exchanged money too, right here in his bar. The trouble is, half the time they're giving money to Izaya, and the other half he's giving money to them. They never end up talking loud enough for Shizuo to overhear, so he'll give them credit for not being _total_ idiots.

"I don't lie," Izaya says, with a smile that would look coy around the rim of a glass, but with only his chin in his hands, he just looks like a villain and a liar.

"You don't tell the truth either," Shizuo points out. "And now you're wasting a perfectly fine drink."

"Oh no," Izaya deadpans, still watching him with that oddly irritating smile. "I've wasted my own hard-earned money. Whatever shall I do?"

"Drink it," Shizuo demands. His blood is hot in his veins, pushing hard in his ears. He's surprised that he's not seeing red.

" _You_ drink it," Izaya shoots back. "Or, oh wait, you can't, can you? You're _working_."

Then he smiles, coy and self-satisfied, like a cat who had just finished an entire saucer of warm milk.

Shizuo takes the drink away. Then, with Izaya watching, he downs it all in one gulp.

  
  
  


The door opens, and a small crowd of young college kids trickle in.

"Is it still raining out?" someone asks them.

"Yeah," one of the kids replies. "Pouring. We can probably stay here for a while, right?"

Shizuo turns to go deal with them, and for a while he forgets about Izaya, forgets about the strange look that had crossed his face or the smile that had dropped away. The college kids are clearly intending to wait out the rain completely, which means they'll have more than enough time to order some drinks.

Most of them want frilly cocktails. The rest want beer. One of the locals starts up a pool game in the hope of hustling some money. Shizuo leaves them to it.

He finally remembers Izaya's presence when the crowd of people starts to thin. The rain has finally stopped, although it's impossible to tell if it is just a brief lull or if the skies have finally cleared up. He goes to see if Izaya's friend might need waking up.

Izaya hasn't moved from his spot at the bar. The empty glass is still in front of him, unmoved. His companion is gone.

Izaya stares at him as Shizuo crosses the room, bearing a tray full of empty glasses. His gaze burns like a warm coal against Shizuo's skin, suffocating, spreading heat through him slowly. It makes him self-conscious of the alcohol in his system, alcohol from Izaya's drink.

"What?" he asks, returning to his station behind the bar. Izaya hasn't taken his eyes off him, and there's something heated in his eyes that makes Shizuo certain that what he wants isn't a drink.

"Your face is flushed," Izaya informs him, even though Shizuo knows for certain that his face isn't even the slightest bit red. "Was it worth it? Stealing my drinks?"

 _You didn't want it in the first place_ , Shizuo wants to say. But that's exactly what Izaya wants him to say, so that he can lure Shizuo into another argument and win with some tricky wordplay.

"Pay up," he says. "And go home." He doesn't want to deal with Izaya at his bar any longer than necessary, with his cryptic smiles and his clear gaze. The empty glass on the counter mocks him. Shizuo can still taste traces of it in his mouth, and it unnerves him more than he wants to admit.

Izaya settles the tab like he always does, with a credit card held out in between two fingers, held out just far enough that Shizuo has to reach out as far as he can to take it.

It's annoying, and Shizuo can never tell if he's doing that on purpose or not. Which makes it even more annoying.

"Maybe I should order more drinks next time," Izaya says, "Now that I know that the ones I don't drink won't go to waste."

"Don't count on it," Shizuo growls. "Just tell me what you want next time."

Izaya just laughs. Shizuo's breath catches in his chest. There's something dangerous there, like spikes pressing against his skin but not sinking in, like madness thinly veiled by a bright smile.

"Next time," Izaya says, and it's a promise.

When he leaves, there is the faint aftertaste of Kahlua in the air, bitter, and intoxicating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> White Russian recipe:
> 
> INGREDIENTS  
> Ice  
> 2 oz. Kahlua  
> 2 oz. vodka  
> 2 oz. heavy cream
> 
> DIRECTIONS  
> Fill a rocks glass with ice. Pour Kahlua and vodka into glass. Pour heavy cream over top and serve.


	2. Creme de Menthe

Once Izaya realizes that Shizuo will drink his unfinished drinks for him, things change.

He orders three drinks instead of one, now. Then four, then five. He leaves them all untouched at the end of the night. When his client or employer leaves, whichever one it is, Izaya stays and raises his eyebrow at Shizuo like _well? Whatcha gonna do?_

Izaya doesn't understand. Shizuo is a bartender. These many drinks are nothing to him.

He still tries to wait a little before drinking them all. He has fewer customers than usual today, but that doesn't mean that he's not working. Izaya is alone at the bar, which he rarely is. Shizuo has a sneaking suspicion that Izaya is trying to guess which cocktails are his favorite ones to make, just so that it stings that much more when they are left untouched.

"Don't you have anything better to do with the rest of your day?" Shizuo asks. He's making Izaya's sixth drink now, and he wonders where all that spare cash is coming from. The only people who spend so much at his bar are alcoholics and college-age bar hoppers. He has never met an alcoholic who never drinks, and he doesn't think that Izaya has been going to any other bars. That puts him in a category all on his own, which irks Shizuo for some reason.

"I like watching you make drinks," Izaya returns. "I'd say that's entertaining enough. Show me that trick with the glasses again."

Shizuo rolls his eyes and ignores him. It's not a trick, it's just a way to break up the ice into crushed ice. You fill a shaker with ice, put two shakers together and - true to its name - shake it back and forth until the ice inside has hit both ends hard enough and often enough to turn into some kind of slush. Izaya always falls silent and watches with amusement whenever Shizuo does it. The sound it makes is loud enough to drown out all of his words anyway.

"I'm done with that step," Shizuo says. "I'm not wasting more ice on you. If you're just gonna order stuff and not drink, then I'm cutting you off. It's a waste of time."

"I'll drink it, I promise." It should be concerning how easily Izaya lies. He smiles in the face of Shizuo's disbelief and says, straight-faced: "The next one. Make me something that has creme de menthe in it, and doesn't look green."

"That's not on the menu," Shizuo growls at him.

"I'll pay you extra."

"You won't drink it anyway."

"Think of it as a challenge," Izaya purrs. Shizuo passes him his sixth drink, a stupid bastardization of a Long Island Iced tea. Izaya had asked for a cocktail with the most number of different alcohols. Shizuo had just decided to give up and put all the leftovers into one glass. It is going to taste godawful, but Izaya isn't going to drink it anyway - Shizuo is.

Shizuo considers it for a moment longer. It's a quiet night, which means his options are to ignore Izaya and stand at the bar doing nothing or to fulfill Izaya's stupid request and make some money.

"Fuck this," he says, grabbing a bottle of creme de menthe off the shelf. It's a bright green bottle, almost translucent neon in its greenness. He half-considers just dumping a pot of coffee into a glass, mixing in a shot, and calling it a day.

But he's going to be the one drinking this, not Izaya, and Shizuo doesn't want coffee in his system at midnight. It might be a good idea for a bar hopper who intended to be up for the rest of the night, but he wants to sleep after this.

In the end, he cheats a little and uses whiskey - its dark brown color filling up the glass and muting out the green. He doesn't need a shaker for this one - just measuring cups and a careful hand. He can feel Izaya's interested gaze on him the entire time.

"You cheated," Izaya tells him when he comes back. "That barely counts as a creme de menthe cocktail. What is the other thing?" He reads the label off of the whiskey bottle. "Tennessee whiskey, old number seven. Sounds like a song, doesn't it?"

"Take it or leave it," Shizuo replies. "I'm still putting it on your tab." He doesn't know why he still feels disappointed when Izaya gives the drink a once-over and then settles back in his chair, clearly not intending to drink it.

"It's not the payment that's the problem," Izaya muses. "How am I supposed to believe in your skills as a bartender if you don't give me exactly what I ask for?"

Shizuo gave him a disbelieving look. "You don't get to say that to me, not when you haven't tried a single one of my drinks."

There's a neat array of seven drinks in front of Izaya now, all bright and colorful and going flat and untouched. The ice in the first one has already melted, diluting the drink until Shizuo knows that it's going to taste wrong. He breathes out a short, annoyed sigh. This is what he signed up for, with Izaya ordering, but it still gets on his nerves.

"I'm sorry," Izaya says with a smile. "I lied. I don't feel like drinking these after all."

Shizuo doesn't even try to protest. He picks up Izaya's drink, one by one, and downs them all.

"That's it for today," he says, setting the last glass down in its spot in the line. The whiskey burns in his lungs, going down. "Go home already."

Izaya is staring at him openly now, but his expression is eerily calm. His gaze lingers on Shizuo's mouth before dropping to take in the seven empty glasses arrayed before him.

"Do you really want me to leave?" Izaya asks.

"Yes," Shizuo replies without any hesitation.

A strangely rueful grin flits across Izaya's face. "I guess it is getting late."

It's more than late. It's almost 4, the latest that Shizuo has ever kept the bar open. He doesn't understand how Izaya is still awake, let alone functional and alert.

Izaya gets up off of the barstool, reaching for his coat. It's Shizuo's turn to watch him openly now. In the dim lighting, Izaya's features are a little softer than usual, with none of the sharp-edged smiles or the piercing, direct stares.

Instead, the smile that Izaya offers him is oddly soft and warm. "Thanks," he says. "This was the most fun I've had in a long while."

Something strange thuds in Shizuo's chest, unbalancing him.

They look at each other in silence for a moment. It's strange, but Shizuo doesn't think he's ever seen Izaya this calm. He doesn't think he's ever noticed the color of Izaya's eyes before, but they're actually a dark reddish-brown. Unusual, just like everything else about him.

"See you later, then," Izaya says finally.

Something comes unstuck in Shizuo's chest. "I'm not going anywhere," he says. He wonders why that sounds so much like a promise.

After Izaya leaves, Shizuo has to clean up the row of glasses that litter the bar counter. He still feels unsettled. There's something digging into him under his skin, a memory of Izaya's smile, maybe, or just the alcohol finally getting to work in his system.

The last thing he cleans up is the bottles of creme de menthe. At the last moment, he pauses and pours himself a shot. It swirls in the shot glass, clear and shockingly green. He imagines Izaya's fingers on the glass, imagines what it would be like when Izaya finally drinks something at his bar.

He drinks the creme de menthe in one gulp and wonders how it would taste on Izaya's tongue instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long Island Iced Tea recipe:
> 
> INGREDIENTS  
> 1/2 fluid ounce vodka  
> 1/2 fluid ounce rum  
> 1/2 fluid ounce gin  
> 1/2 fluid ounce tequila  
> 1/2 fluid ounce triple sec (orange-flavored liqueur)  
> 1 fluid ounce sweet and sour mix  
> 1 fluid ounce cola, or to taste  
> 1 lemon slice
> 
> DIRECTIONS  
> Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, and sour mix over ice; cover and shake. Pour cocktail into a Collins or hurricane glass; top with splash of cola for color. Garnish with a lemon slice.
> 
> Next chapter is a flashback!


	3. Grenadine

Even when Izaya isn't around, the bar that Shizuo runs is far from normal.

His bar is located on a side-street several miles away from the city center, in a neighborhood that is mostly full of metal factories and office skyscrapers. Most of his clientele are lower-class janitors or office workers that work during the nighttime. The trains don't run to this part of town, so anyone who is in his bar past a certain time is clearly intending to be up all night.

As Shizuo should have expected, that means that his bar also gets all sorts of _other_ people, people who stay up all night. They don't necessarily work outside the law, but they definitely skirt around the edges of it.

The regulars call these folk _troublemakers_. They're not bad people, necessarily. Most of the time, when they come into Shizuo's bar, they're hiding from the real bad guys, debt collectors or yakuza or abusive boyfriends or clients.

But now, for Shizuo, a _troublemaker_ is a loaded term. And so far in Shizuo's experience, only one person has ever caused him enough of a headache to deserve that word.

  
  
  


The first time he met Izaya Orihara, the bar had been overrun by gangsters, and to this day Shizuo was still convinced that it was all Izaya's fault.

Gangsters usually stayed away from his bar. They usually had their own favorite hangouts, and didn't like straying out into unfamiliar territory. But on that day, there had been three or four different gangs all converging on Shizuo's bar like some kind of damn convention. They were all on the young side. He thought that they all might be younger than him, barely out of school. They all had scars on their faces, though, marking them out as victims from the many other knife fights that sometimes happened on the streets outside of his bar.

They took up the entire back corner of the bar, filling up couches and armchairs, leaning against the pool table and dragging over wooden chairs to form a protective circle so that no one would overhear.

Shizuo watched them all from the bar, not bothering to be discreet at all. They were paying customers, so he let them talk to each other in peace, but he stared at them from the bar the entire while.

It had been impossible _not_ to notice Izaya, even back then, before Shizuo had learned his name and had learned to associate the word _trouble_ with it.

It was hard not to notice someone staring back at you.

Izaya Orihara had been in the middle of it all, one arm slung around the back of his chair, sitting a little apart from the rest. He was watching Shizuo instead of the crowd. Now that Shizuo thought about it, Izaya never interacted with the gangsters, not that Shizuo could see. In turn, they didn't even glance at him; they all seemed to be as determined to ignore both him and Shizuo.

At first, Shizuo had thought that the boy had simply wandered into the wrong crowd. He didn't look like he belonged - one unscarred face in a sea of many, and the only one who seemed totally at ease. 

After a while, after the negotiations had grown in volume and were well underway, Izaya had finally come up to the bar.

Instead of making an order for drinks, or offering a greeting as Shizuo had expected, he had just leaned on the counter.

"You're staring," he said. "Didn't anybody ever tell you it's rude to stare?"

"I wasn't staring at you," Shizuo replied, fighting down a burst of indignation and irritation. _You were the one who started it_.

Izaya just smiled. Shizuo disliked that smile instantly. "I'm Izaya Orihara."

"Shizuo Heiwajima."

"So, Shizu-chan, do you make it a habit to stare at your customers?"

"Do you make it a habit to walk into a bar without ordering anything? And don't call me that."

"Call you what, Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo had enough. He pushed away from the bar, getting ready to kick them all out of his bar, every single last one of them.

"Wait," Izaya backed off, sensing the change in Shizuo's mood. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his wallet, then counted out an insane number of bills. "I'm ordering now. Happy? A drink for everyone in the bar. What's that called again? This round is on me."

Shizuo shouldn't have hesitated, but he did. There were easily thirty or forty people in the bar, and Izaya was definitely dropping enough money to buy them each _two_ rounds of drinks, not just one. The sheer amount of money stopped Shizuo in his tracks. He reevaluated his earlier assumptions about what Izaya Orihara was doing here.

When he didn't move, Izaya flashed him a relieved smile. "I'll just leave this here," he said, placing one last bill on the truly ridiculous stack in front of him. "One drink for everyone, and keep the rest as a tip."

"Why are you doing this?" the question was out of Shizuo's mouth before he could stop it. He shouldn't have asked. He shouldn't have hesitated. But it was too late for that now.

Izaya gave him a long, lingering look. It sent an uneasy chill down Shizuo's spine. It felt like he was being weighed, considered, and judged.

"You're helping me out right now," he said finally. "Just think of it as payment for services rendered, or as a thank you, for helping me."

"What are you talking about?" A horrible suspicion came to mind. "Are these people all here because of you?"

Izaya laughed. "That's a harsh accusation, Shizu-chan. I'm just here for drinks, just like everyone else."

"Bullshit. None of you are here for my drinks." It hadn't escaped his notice that, even with essentially an open bar, none of the rough-faced men in the back corner had come up to get drinks.

It shouldn't have irritated him, but it did. _You're in a bar,_ he wanted to growl at them. _Why the hell aren't you ordering anything?_

Izaya sent him a slow smile, realization dawning in his eyes. It was not a look that Shizuo enjoyed seeing, especially on Izaya's face.

"I see," Izaya said. He paused, tapping a finger to his lips. "Then, make me something to drink. See if you can guess what I like."

"Sure, gimme your ID."

"Not so fast," Izaya grinned at him. "I have to decide whether I'll drink it or not."

"That's not how this works."

"Indulge me?"

"You're a bartender's worst nightmare," Shizuo said, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. Izaya just smiled at him, slow and sweet and somehow mischievous, a smile that would later become synonymous with _trouble_ in Shizuo's mind.

He made Izaya something sweet to start, something with grenadine, bright red and fizzly, but by the time he turned around, Izaya was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tequila Sunrise recipe:
> 
> INGREDIENTS:  
> 2 ounces tequila  
> 4 ounces orange juice  
> 1/2 ounce grenadine  
> Garnish: orange slice  
> Garnish: maraschino cherry
> 
> INSTRUCTIONS:  
> Fill a highball glass with 1 1/2 cups ice and set aside.  
> Combine tequila and orange juice in a cocktail mixing glass. Add 1 cup ice, stir, and strain into the prepared highball glass. Slowly pour in grenadine and let settle.  
> Stir before drinking.


	4. Vodka

Ironically, summer is one of the quietest seasons in Shizuo's bar. All the college kids are no longer around, and although there are more construction workers, there are also more bars open. Those other bars are closer to the train station or in a better location. He gets a few regulars, still, those who happen to live close by or those who work in the area. But overall, it's one of the most peaceful months Shizuo has had in a while.

It's times like this that Shizuo feels the most homesick. He doesn't actually want to go back home. There are only painful memories waiting for him back there. He came here years ago to get lost in the crowd, to disappear into a city where nobody knew his face.

Nobody here jumps at the sight of him, or runs away screaming. Nobody here whispers behind his back or shakes their heads disapprovingly at his existence. But Shizuo wonders if he'll always be stuck here, watching strangers come in and out of his bar, slowly forgetting the sound of his own name.

When the door opens, he turns to call a greeting, expecting one of his regulars. Instead, the person that comes in is the last person Shizuo expects to see.

Izaya Orihara stands in front of the door, letting it swing shut behind him, taking in the bar like it's someplace he's missed. His hair is a little longer than last time, but his jacket is the same. He looks like he's just stepped into existence.

When he catches sight of Shizuo, he smiles instantly. It reminds Shizuo a little of gasoline catching on fire, too bright to look away from, and somehow dangerous.

"Hello, Shizu-chan," he says. "Missed me?"

Shizuo stops dead in his tracks.

It hasn't been weeks since he's seen Izaya last.

It's been months.

He tries not to feel bitter about it. Izaya isn't a regular, not quite. He hasn't even had any of Shizuo's drinks. He doesn't owe Shizuo his time, or his presence, or his money. But the sight of him is a sharp, painful shock.

Shizuo fights the recognition in him. The right thing to do would be to treat Izaya as just another customer, but he can't.

It's like Izaya was here just yesterday. It's like he never left. It feels like Shizuo has been waiting for him this entire time, drifting aimlessly through the day, and Izaya is the only thing that makes anything real.

A surge of irritation burns through Shizuo, a familiar hot feeling. He would have been fine, sleepwalking through the rest of his life, until Izaya showed up. But now, all of a sudden, Izaya's back, and Shizuo is painfully reminded again of how _empty_ his life is. It reminds him of why he hates this after all.

"You," Shizuo says flatly.

Izaya's smile, at first uncertain, widens into a real grin.

"You remembered me," he says. He shouldn't look so smug in his victory. It makes Shizuo want to kick him out.

Shizuo is still holding a tray full of empty glasses. He realizes that he shouldn't linger too long, or people will think that he's staring.

Shizuo turns on his heel to go back to the bar. Izaya follows him, taking up his usual seat by the edge of the bar. That seat has remained empty for the past few months. Shizuo doesn't want to think about it too hard, doesn't want to realize what that says about him.

"There's no one with you this time," Shizuo notes, pulling out a glass. He doesn't know why he does this automatically, even though it's been months since Izaya has last walked in through his door. He doesn't want to think about the fact that this has become muscle memory.

Izaya shrugs. "Didn't feel like bringing a date today."

Shizuo's hands clench on the glass. Ah, that's right. He hates this. He remembers this now. Methodically, he focuses on making the drink and pouring all the ingredients into the shaker.

He remembers this too: Izaya watching his hands, chin propped up on his palm. His eyes never stray from the bar, and his stares are just as unsettling as always. Izaya has never learned how to be subtle.

"Did you miss me?" Izaya asks again. "Did you wonder where I was?"

"It's been quiet without you," Shizuo tells him. That's the most he's willing to give.

"I had to go back home," Izaya says. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before I left. I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone."

Shizuo doesn't respond. He doesn't need explanations, he's just a bartender. And if Izaya is just here to make conversation, he should have gone to another bar.

Instead, he just hands Izaya his drink. It's bright red and bubbly, with ice filled all the way to the top.

Izaya gives it an appreciative once-over, then sets it down to the side. His gaze returns to Shizuo. He hasn't looked away from Shizuo ever since he's walked through that door. 

"Don't avoid the question, Shizu-chan. Did you miss me?"

Shizuo swallows the burn of anger as his cocktail is ignored. He spent only a minute making it, tops, but Izaya has managed to piss him off in less time than that before.

 _I couldn't forget about you_ , he thinks. _And I'm afraid of what that says about me._

He has always believed that he liked the quiet. He doesn't want to have anything to do with the way that Izaya makes him feel. He can't deal with that mess in his life, not again.

But he can't stay silent either. Not with Izaya's gaze burning through him like hunger pangs. Shizuo leans forward, elbows on the counter until he and Izaya are eye to eye.

"It depends," he says. "Why did you come back to my city, Izaya? Are you done working for the yakuza or are you a part of them now?"

There's a beat of dead silence as Izaya's eyes go wide. He suddenly looks vulnerable, and Shizuo can't help but try to memorize the sight of him, finally being knocked out of his comfort zone.

"Don't try to deny it," Shizuo says, feeling a strange thrill. He rarely has the opportunity to surprise Izaya with anything. This is probably the only chance he'll get. "I know you've been bringing gangsters into my bar, and I've seen them walking around later as part of the yakuza. I don't know who you are, but I know you've got something to do with it."

It had taken him a few weeks to piece it all together. He wondered if Izaya had banked on the possibility of him finding out eventually.

From the look on Izaya's face, apparently he had not.

"For a bartender," Izaya notes, "You're very observant."

"I don't want to hear that from you."

"Why? It's a compliment. And trust me, I don't give out compliments that often."

"Because it's from you."

"What's wrong with me?"

"You're a liar."

Izaya draws back, offended. "What _?_ I've never lied to you."

He is so convincing that Shizuo almost believes him for a second. It's almost terrifying how easy it is for Izaya to get him caught up in all of his games.

"Have you ever heard of lies by omission?" Shizuo asks him. "The whole ‘I didn't lie; I just didn't tell you' excuse. That's you in a nutshell, Izaya. You brought _gangsters_ into _my bar_ and told them that I would beat them all up if they started fighting. You bet on them knowing who I was, or at least what I could do. You used me, you tricked them, and you never said a word about it to anyone."

"That might be the most flattering thing anyone has ever said about me."

"It's not a compliment."

"It sure sounded like one. Come on, Shizu-chan. No harm, no foul, right? We're friends now, so at least something good came out of it."

"We're not friends."

"Are we?"

"I don't know you," Shizuo says, and the words feel like a weight in his chest. "You've been coming to my bar for months but then you just suddenly stopped. I didn't know if I had dreamed you up or if you even existed at all. I still don't know what you were really doing with all those people, and I have no idea why they even listened to you. And I still can't figure out what you like to drink."

It's the most he's ever said all at once, and it carries a lot more venom than Shizuo had expected. He avoids Izaya's gaze, going back to his task of filling up glasses with ice. It's going to be a slow day. He knows that already. Weekdays in the summer are always slow. But he needs something to do with his hands, or else he's going to explode. He's already said more than he intended to.

Izaya keeps staring at him with a strange expression on his face. To Shizuo's surprise, he doesn't say anything for a while. He just sits there, fiddling with the drink that Shizuo set in front of him.

"That doesn't mean that I want you to tell me," Shizuo says, right when Izaya opens his mouth.

He's going through the motions of making a drink again, something easy and relaxing, to keep his mind off of Izaya's stare. He makes something with Kahlua in it again, and pours an extra serving of heavy cream over it.

"Why?"

"It would mean that I couldn't figure you out myself."

"Would you like a hint?" Izaya asks. "I've been unfair to you, I'm sorry."

Shizuo risks a glance at him, which is a mistake. He gets caught in the way sincerity looks on Izaya's face, the way it makes his mouth soft and uncertain, and the way it makes Shizuo want to give him a chance.

"Fine," Shizuo says, his heart suddenly hammering in his throat. "What's your hint?"

"Pour me a shot," Izaya replies. "Just vodka, please."

Shizuo shouldn't've been surprised. It's always evasions, with Izaya. It's like he's allergic to the truth the way that vampires are to sunlight.

Still, he has simply traded one truth for another. This is Shizuo's first indication of what kind of drinks Izaya likes.

Except that vodka is near-tasteless and almost pure alcohol, which tells him nothing. _Typical._

"Here," he says, pouring a shot and placing it in front of Izaya with a little more force than necessary.

He clears the red drink off of the counter - he had intended to drink it himself, so he does it now, without giving Izaya a chance to protest. The ice clinks hard against his teeth, and Shizuo shudders as he sets it back down.

"Don't be offended," Izaya smiles at him. "Not everyone likes cocktails, you know."

"You could have told me earlier," Shizuo growls, but he's too distracted by the way Izaya's fingers curl around the shot glass. He's forgotten about it, but he remembers now - despite all the time that he has spent here, Izaya has never actually consumed alcohol in his bar.

"Where's the fun in that?" Izaya wants to know. Then he tilts his head back and swallows the shot in one practiced motion.

Shizuo can feel his heartbeat pulsing in his throat. He should be chilled from the drink he just had, but instead, there's just a strange heat building up behind his chest.

Izaya sets the glass back down. His calm expression is back.

"Alright," he says. "Now it's your turn. A truth for a truth. Did you miss me?"

Shizuo can't take his eyes off of Izaya's mouth, imagining the way alcohol burns your tongue and your throat when you take a shot like that, and wondering how Izaya can still sound so smooth.

And Izaya is right. A truth for a truth, even if it's one that Shizuo doesn't want to admit.

"Yes," he replies in a near whisper. "I missed you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vodka Shot:
> 
> INGREDIENTS:  
> 3/4 ounce vodka
> 
> INSTRUCTIONS:  
> Pour vodka into a shot glass. Serve.


	5. Irish Cream

"So," Shizuo asks. "When were you going to tell me that you were underage?"

Izaya's calm disappears in a flash of a smile. "I turned twenty last month, but I've been told that I act older than my age."

"You do realize that this is another lie, right?" Shizuo asks. "Coming in here, acting like you're this rich young socialite, when really you're just a rich delinquent."

At least now he knows why Izaya never accepted any of his drinks before. Izaya hands him his ID as proof, and Shizuo studies it, feeling a little uneasy. Now, he has proof that the person standing in front of him is a real person, not someone he has made up. Izaya Orihara is someone with a birth date and a hometown and a family, and even if he disappears into the ether someday, at least Shizuo will know for sure that he existed.

"How long have you known?" Izaya asks.

"Since the beginning," Shizuo replies. He slides Izaya's card back to him on the countertop. "Someone else once showed me your fake ID."

Izaya makes a moue of frustration. "Shoddy work," he mutters darkly. "Guess I won't be recommending them again."

Then he catches sight of Shizuo still watching him, and grins. "So, you were knowingly serving alcohol to a minor this entire time? Won't you lose your liquor license for that?"

"You never drank any alcohol," Shizuo points out. "I said I would kick you out if you ever tried."

He should know that Izaya has no shame by now. Not a single flicker of remorse shows up on his face.

"You don't seem like the law-abiding type," Shizuo muses. "You're around too many shady people. And I know you drink. You knew all the things that I made for you and what they tasted like."

Izaya spreads his hands and shrugs. "I don't know what you think of me," he says in a rare flash of honesty. "But I'm not the kind of person who enjoys seeing people break the law by accident. You've been good to me. Lying to you would feel like dishonoring that."

"But you didn't tell me the truth either," Shizuo reminds him.

Izaya's lips quirk into a rare, genuine smile. "I'm telling you the truth now." _No more lies_ , his tone implies.

Shizuo decides to put that to the test.

"Why were you gone for so long?" Shizuo asks.

Izaya's smile goes from angel to devil faster than Shizuo can blink. He puts his fingers to his lips, says: "Now that's no fun, Shizuo. Direct questions like that aren't any good. What'll happen to my air of mystery then?"

"I hate this side of you," Shizuo says.

Izaya comes closer, eyelashes dipping low, like he might slide in for a kiss. The thought has Shizuo's pulse racing. He's not sure he would stop Izaya if he did.

"How much?" Izaya asks.

Shizuo puts a hand between them, and his palm comes into contact with the front of Izaya's shirt, directly over his heart. Izaya feels more solid than he had expected, warm underneath his collarbones.

"Enough," he says, in both senses of the word.

They pause, and time collects itself around them like a blanket. Shizuo could stay here forever, with his sudden inability to breathe, his sudden inability to focus on anything except for the warmth beneath his fingertips.

"I'm getting mixed signals here," Izaya says quietly. It just makes him seem more intense, whenever he goes all serious like that. Shizuo thinks it would be easy to peg Izaya as an airhead, a fool who had no idea what he was getting into, if he hadn't seen Izaya like this.

"Welcome to my life for the past few months," Shizuo tells him.

"What do you want to know?" Izaya asks, smiling a little. "I'll tell you anything."

"Like I said - why were you gone so long?"

Izaya waits, but Shizuo doesn't let up on the pressure, keeping him away.

After a moment, with a sigh, he turns back and settles into his chair.

"It's really not as interesting as you think," he says. "I helped out a couple people around here, introduced them to each other, unionized them, shall we say. That got the attention of several higher-ups. They weren't too happy about the lower-tier two-bit villains getting organized. They found out that I was involved, so I had to lie low for a while."

Shizuo stares at him. There's so much to unpack there that it's not even funny.

"Are there people after you?" he asks finally.

Izaya laughs, waving the notion away. "No, no, that's all taken care of now. Don't worry, nobody's going to hurt me."

Shizuo closes his eyes briefly.

"Okay," he says, then turns back to his workstation. There's a half-finished mudslide on there, irish cream still sitting unopened, off to the side. He shakes his head at having gotten so distracted.

Izaya can't hide the delight in his expression. "That's it?" he asks, all barely-suppressed glee. "You sure underreact to things."

"I don't get paid enough to deal with you and your problems," Shizuo tells him. "I have enough of my own."

Izaya throws back his head and laughs.

The sound curls under Shizuo's skin, makes him warm somewhere between his collarbones and his chest. He hates it, he can't get enough of it.

"Do you have any other plans to stir up trouble around here?" he asks. "If you do, let me know right now."

"Why?"

"So I can kick you out."

Izaya slides his hand through his hair and smiles like he's just been called pretty.

"Promises, promises," he says.

Shizuo almost throws him out right then and there, but he knows he won't. Not with the low light playing across Izaya's face like that.

"Are you gonna order anything?" he asks. "Or are you just gonna sit there and stare at me until closing time?"

"Surprise me," Izaya tells him.

Shizuo does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Kiss on the Lips:
> 
> INGREDIENTS  
> 1 cup frozen mango chunks  
> 1 1/2 ounces Malibu Rum OR flavored vodka (pineapple, peach, strawberry, raspberry, etc.)  
> 1 1/2 ounces peach schnapps  
> 1 tablespoon grenadine, or to taste  
> maraschino cherries
> 
> DIRECTIONS  
> To the canister of a blender, add the mango, rum or vodka, peach schnapps, and blend on high-speed to incorporate. If desired, add more mango (or ice) for a thicker consistency.
> 
> Pour into a glass, drizzle with grenadine to taste, stir in the grenadine if desired or just let gravity do the work, optionally garnish with maraschino cherries and pineapple. Serve immediately. Recipe is intended for those for whom alcohol is legal and appropriate.


End file.
